Chapter 137 Recon (2)

From the looks of things, the perimeter had 3 layers of protection. Two layers of undead guards holding the perimeter line, and a bunch of creatures hidden somewhere within the decayed forest watching over. If not for his earth sense, perhaps he would've fallen for the trap.

~Are they... building?~ Lucius thought to himself as he noticed an odd-looking structure just out in the distance. Pushing himself to the limit, he quickly dashed from tree to tree, going higher up with each leap.

~Oh lord,~ he thought to himself as he watched a group of undead shrooms using the Elmando skill to build what looked like the foundation for a massive structure.

~So they retain their skills even after they're dead?~ he thought to himself. He was unsure what skills the other sentients had, but this was bound to spell trouble if the necromancer somehow managed to kill a creature on the level of a furry-folk.

After following the structures deeper into the camp, all the while going higher and higher atop the trees to ensure he would not be whiffed out by any short-range 'earth senses', he finally made his way to the center of the necromancer camp... or at least its center's border.

At least 400 undead creatures were standing guard in front of what looked like a massive temple made of decayed matter. And those were just the ones that he could see.

The temple itself had a pyramidal shape, with a base the size of a football court, and its length reaching the uppermost canopy of the forest (which was about 90 meters off the ground.)

The creatures standing guard here were unlike any he had ever seen before. Among them were humanoid bats, at least 1.4 meters tall. He counted 12 giant beetles with a row of horns on their heads, at least 2 meters tall. And a whole squadron of humanoid insects, at least 1.7 meters tall, with each of them carrying some sort of weapon on each of their four arms.

The rest of the undead 'guard' consisted of what he could only describe as ghouls. They resembled no creature had ever seen and were vast in number. Their skin seemed to be in a perpetual state of shifting, seemingly made of a black goop.

~Hmm, the beetles will probably be the most troublesome,~ Lucius thought to himself as he tried to gather what little he could from merely observing them.

If these beetles followed the same logic as the ones on earth, then they could probably carry many times their own weight. And from the looks of it, they probably weighed more than an elephant, as they had heavy-looking metallic shells... which wasn't too out of place as he had once fought a centipede with the same shell.

~Basically tanks... and it's safe to assume their wings work, so tanks with the maneuverability of a bomber jet,~ he thought to himself. Though their massive size probably meant that they would not be able to properly maneuver due to all the trees.

Second to them would probably be the humanoid insects. As well as having metallic armor, and wings, they were smaller, and more nimble. They also had four arms, meaning they could possibly pose a threat when it came to hand-to-hand combat.

The bats, although scary looking, seemed to be of lower intelligence than the insects as they held no weapons, and were smaller in comparison. At the bottom of the shelf would be the ghouls... they moved without goal as if they lacked any intelligence.

~They probably just attack any non-undead thing in sight,~ Lucius thought to himself.

This concluded his reconnaissance, though he doubted that these were the strongest creatures in the necromancer's arsenal.

After exploring a bit more, all the while making sure to use earth sense to avoid being caught, he got a general idea of the outer camp perimeter. He didn't dare go in towards the temple, as there was a high chance that the necromancer himself was in there.

~Assuming that none of these creatures have magic, I'm sure the boy's and I can wipe out the first three layers of protection. Whatever enemy they are facing can take advantage of this, and there's the chance the necromancer might think it was them and not suspect us,~ Lucius thought to himself.

~For the main temple Pagan and I can probably start a forest fire, since dead and decaying plant material makes good fuel. Though I doubt this will stop the necromancer, it might help it's enemies win,~ he thought as he made his way out of the decayed forest.

~If all goes to plan, then we can use this attack to help in negotiations with the necromancer's enemy... an enemy of my enemy is my friend, or however that went,~ he thought to himself.

Waiting had proved to be useful.

*

"Hello," Lucius called out as he walked into the arachnid cave. It had been 4 days since he had fed the babies. so he doubted that they were still here.

~I can't sense anything,~ he thought to himself as he walked deeper into the cave. Calling out his crux, he moved it around to see if the babies had died or fled.

~It's the runts,~ he thought, spotting two arachnid baby corpses at a corner of the cave. They had been the smallest out of the group, and probably stayed hoping that someone would come to help them.

"Sorry I took so long," Lucius whispered before going to collect their corpses. As he was picking one of them up, he sensed a very small signal from one of them. It was still alive, but just barely.

~Solar cleanse,~ he chanted, hoping that it would work. THough as expected, the spell failed. Solar cleanse only worked on superficial injuries, anything more complex could only be healed through radiant healing.

Lucius put the still alive arachnid in his hand, before bolting out of the cave, towards the camp.

"Just hold on, I'll get you fixed up and fed... then you'll work for me," he whispered to it, before gently handing it to is tail and galloping on all fours.